Hate is NOT a family value!!!

Posted: November 25, 2010 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Civil Rights, GLBT Rights, Marriage Equality | Tags: Defense of Marriage, hate groups, The Family Research Council | 27 Comments

I wanted to pass this link on from WAPO because I think it’s got an important message in it today. You cannot hide hate behind religion and expect people to remain silent. We know who you are and we know what your agenda is. You cannot hide behind a bible any more than slave owners and wife beaters can.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been an important voice in civil rights for a very long time Today, ” they labeled as “hate groups” several political and religious organizations that campaign against same-sex marriage and, the center says, engage in “repeated, groundless name-calling” against gays and lesbians.”
Good for them!!!

Included on the list released by the civil rights organization is the Family Research Council, a prominent and politically influential group of social conservatives. The report by the law center, which has spent four decades tracking extremist groups and hate speech, accuses the council and a dozen other groups of putting out “demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.”

The report, which has sparked debate across the Internet, taps into the continuing potency of social issues, such as same-sex marriage, in American politics. Several of the groups described in the report supported a successful effort to oust state Supreme Court judges in Iowa because of a unanimous ruling last year that legalized same-sex unions.

The Family Research Council has been at the forefront of political activism against same-sex marriage. In explaining the decision to put the council on its hate-groups list, the law center highlighted comments by Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the council, who told MSNBC host Chris Matthews this year that he thinks “homosexual behavior” should be outlawed.

Council President Tony Perkins, who was also named in the report, called the hate-group designation a political attack by a “liberal organization.”

“The left’s smear campaign of conservatives is . . . being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state . . . that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so,” Perkins said in a statement.

I cannot figure out why ‘marriage’ needs defending against anything. Any institution that’s viable will stand the test of time and public support. The defense of marriage is not more than a horrible campaign to exclude people that don’t meet specific physical criteria defend by a bunch of narrow minded bigots.

It’s about time we label them all what they are. They are hate-groups. Now, if we could only get CNN and other MSM outlets to start treating them like the KKK which is another organization that tries to define its insidious form of hatred behind religion too.

Thursday Reads: Thanksgiving Day

Posted: November 25, 2010 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Bradley Manning, conservation, gratitude, HIV, Insider Trading, Thanksgiving, Tigers, Tom DeLay, Wikileaks | 53 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all have a wonderful day today.

Even though the news has been discouraging for a long time now, we probably all have something to be grateful for. I know I do. I’m going to share some of what I’m grateful for today, and I hope everyone who comes around to to our “little blog that could” today will do likewise.

First, I’m very grateful today for all of you who have helped us get up and running these past few weeks!

Most of all, I’m grateful for my family. Although we lost my dad in March, we are fortunate to still have my mom with us. I’m grateful to have close relationships with my two brothers and two sisters. I’m grateful for my nieces and nephews and my grand-nephew and grand-niece. Children are our future, and I’m fortunate to have a chance to help make it better for them.

I’m grateful to have had the chance to pursue my education in the second half of in life. I’m grateful for my mother-in-law, who was there for me when I needed a place to live after my husband and I split up. I cared for her for 18 years, and I’m very grateful to have had her in my life, and all that I learned from her. Because she gave me a place to live, I was able to return to college and eventually earn a PhD in psychology. I’m also grateful for the state and federal government help I received during the time I was in school.

I’m grateful that I’ve been sober since May, 1982. If it weren’t for my sobriety, I wouldn’t have any of the other things I’ve mentioned. I was very fortunate to be able to turn my life around beginning 28 years ago.

As you know, I’m not that happy with how things are going for our country right now. I think our political establishment is beyond corrupt and that corrupt corporations are ruining our country and perhaps the world. I’m so thankful for the internet–without the ability to communicate with other people and share my anger at our political system, I don’t know how I would have survived. So I’m very grateful to many bloggers and commenters who have helped me know that I’m not alone in my anger and frustration.

Here are a few events in today’s news that I’m grateful for:

Texas Jury Convicts Tom Delay on Money Laundering Charges

DeLay was found guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, court bailiff Gilbert Soto said. He was accused of funneling $190,000 to help elect Republicans to the state House and Senate in 2002.

At the outset of the trial, DeLay predicted the jury would clear him, and he remained unrepentant after learning the verdict..

“This is an abuse of power. It’s a miscarriage of justice,” DeLay told reporters. “I still maintain that I am innocent, that the criminalization of politics undermines our very system, and I’m very disappointed in the outcome. But you know, it is what it is, and we will carry on and maybe we can get it before people who understand the law.”

Wednesday Night Turkey Trot

Posted: November 24, 2010 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Festivities, Food | Tags: Turkey | 21 Comments

So, tis the night before thanksgiving and all through the house …

Let’s TALK TURKEY!!!

Turkey Nightmare:

Turkey Porn:

Turkey Leftovers Recipe:

Ingredients

1/2 lb white beans, soaked overnight in water, drained

3 cups turkey stock

1 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium onions, chopped (divided)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 jalapeño or serrano pepper, stem and most seeds removed, chopped (optional)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Pinch of ground cloves

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 4-ounce cans chopped green chilies

2 cups diced cooked turkey

Salt to taste (about 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon)

Garnishes and extras

1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese

1/3 cup (loose) chopped cilantro

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1 avocado, pitted, peeled, and chopped (or guacamole)

Chopped tomatoes or salsa

Corn tortilla chips and/or fresh warmed flour tortillas

Method

1 Combine beans, turkey stock, garlic and half the onions in a large soup pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until beans are very soft, 1 to 3 hours or more. (Depending on the type of white beans you are using. Cannelli beans are tender and tend to cook rather quickly. Navy beans take longer.) Add additional water (or watered-down stock), if necessary.

2 Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium heat, cook chopped jalapeno (if using) and remaining onions in oil until tender. Add green chilies and seasonings and mix thoroughly. Add to bean mixture. Add turkey and salt to taste, and simmer for 10 minutes or more (up to an hour) until the beans are thoroughly soft and the stew has thickened.

3 Serve topped with grated cheese. Garnish with cilantro, chopped fresh tomato, salsa, chopped green onions, and/or avocados. Serve with fresh warmed flour tortillas or tortilla chips.

Serves 4 to 5.

Political Turkey:

It’s an open thread because I’ve been refereeing papers all day and I’m pooped!!!

Less to be thankful about …

Posted: November 24, 2010 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Global Financial Crisis, The Bonus Class, The Great Recession, U.S. Economy | Tags: corporate profits records, FED US economic forecasts | 15 Comments

The Fed has lowered its economic expectations despite the news that corporate profits during the third quarter have rallied like it’s 1984. What does this say for our economy? More importantly, what does it say about our policy makers who steadfastly refuse to see the significance in these conflicting figures?

Top Federal Reserve officials project that the unemployment rate, now 9.6 percent, will fall only to about 9 percent at the end of 2011 and about 8 percent when the next presidential election arrives, in late 2012. The central bankers had envisioned a more rapid decline in joblessness in their previous forecasts, prepared in June.

The sober economic forecast comes despite signs that the recovery is picking up slightly. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the three months ending in September, not 2 percent as earlier estimated. And there have been solid readings in recent weeks on job creation, manufacturing and retail.

The apparent contradiction reflects the brutal math that faces a nation trying claw out of a deep recession: Moderate growth, which would be fine in normal times, will do little to bring down sky-high joblessness, a reality reflected in the Fed’s forecasts.

The uneven impact of recovery is amazing and well, downright unAmerican. While corporations are now feeling the benefits of the stimulus, people are not. Tax cuts made by stimulus nearly two years ago are not reaching the jobs markets or households. The NYT analysis shows that corporate spending on payrolls are way down, while their write-offs of foolish investments is no longer the problem it once was. Additionally, U.S. firms doing business over seas are doing remarkably well. So, where are these profits going? Certainly, they are not ‘trickling down’ via job creation or anything else that would be a boon to Main Street.

The moderate growth of GDP will not be enough to curb unemployment which is why it is vital the government do something. The news today impacted the stock market so even Wall Street is aware that this is bad news.

The Fed’s top policymakers project that gross domestic product will rise 3 to 3.6 percent next year – which would represent a solid acceleration from the past two quarters but still would only be enough to bring the unemployment rate to the 8.9 to 9.1 percent range in the final months of 2011 and 7.7 to 8.2 percent at the end of 2012.

The officials also increased their estimate of how low the nation’s unemployment rate could ultimately go without stoking inflation. Several estimated that level is 6 percent or higher, not the 5 to 5.3 percent earlier thought.

Businesses cannot expand and grow without customers. The current improvement is mostly due to bookkeeping past errors. This is not the solid underpinning of a strong recovery. It is easy to see why Bernanke is considering the QE2 given these GDP forecasts and the ongoing reality revision of Okun’s rule of thumb on the relationship between GDP growth and the unemployment rate. The Fed’s statement shows that the BOG is doing QE2 because it’s necessary. There is a tone of reluctance in their accompanying statements. There is also the underlying feeling that policy at the zero-bound is not all that effective.

But most Fed officials expected the results of bond purchases “to help promote a somewhat stronger recovery in output and employment while also helping return inflation, over time, to levels consistent with the Committee’s mandate.” Some also thought the action would offer insurance against a further drop in inflation or against the “small probability” of persistent deflation.

But the document also leaves little doubt that several Fed officials remain uneasy with the action. Some anticipated that they would have only a “limited” effect on the pace of recovery, arguing the action should only be taken if the odds of deflation “increased materially.”

And several “noted concern” that the action “could put unwanted downward pressure on the dollar’s value in foreign exchange markets” or “an undesirably large increase inflation.”

I’ve said this before, but I continue to be baffled by the reluctance to aggressively pursue the fiscal policy means to buoy up the economy for the every day American. Certainly, the last two elections were the result of frustration by the voter about the continual emphasis within the Beltway of the interests of the power that be. War machines and paper profits get subsidies. Suffering people are left to their devices. Even, if they’ve been productive and paid for themselves up until now.

It is undoubtedly beyond time to move policy attention away from banks, auto manufacturers, and rich people seeking continued tax breaks. It is not time to listen to the groups that don’t read data that reflect the danger of deflation. If only Milton Friedman were alive to cut them off at the knees! I can’t imagine these self-styled ‘conservatives’ could stand up to him.

I picked this item up at Economist’s View. It’s just discouraging that no policy maker seems to read these things and feel like they’ve been making huge mistakes. I have to get on the University library website to get the paper free, but so far, just what Thoma has quoted is horrifying. It includes this.

According to our measures almost 40% of households have been affected either by unemployment, negative home equity, arrears on their mortgage payments, or foreclosure. Additionally economic preparation for retirement, which is hard to measure, has undoubtedly been affected. Many people approaching retirement suffered substantial losses in their retirement accounts: indeed in the November 2008 survey, 25% of respondents aged 50-59 reported they had lost more than 35% of their retirement savings, and some of them locked in their losses prior to the partial recovery in the stock market by selling out. Some persons retired unexpectedly early because of unemployment, leading to a reduction of economic resources in retirement which will be felt throughout their retirement years. Some younger workers who have suffered unemployment will not reach their expected level of lifetime earnings and will have reduced resources in retirement as well as during their working years.

Prudent fiscal policy requires running deficits when the economy is faltering. Not only that, there are laws–like the Humphrey Hawkins Act of 1978–that demand it!!! Long term fiscal restraint should be examined when the U.S. economy is on a secure footing. Now isn’t the time for austerity. Now is the time to conquer the real problems of people and not those imagined in the minds of Washington DC bloviates who just want more power and more money. Most Americans are worried about keeping their homes, feeding themselves, and holding on to jobs if they have one right now. How is that less important than the tax cuts of the very few or the other special interest bills that they are working on the current lame duck session?

Where is the real leadership of the Democratic Party?

Wednesday Morning Reads

Posted: November 24, 2010 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Barney Frank, Ben Bernanke, Bobby Jindal the Terrible, C Street Fundamentalist threat, Milton Friedman, Monetarist approach to the Great Depression, QE2, TSA hates pat downs | 65 Comments

Good Morning!!!

I thought I’d give you reason to be glad that Bobby Jindal the Terrible isn’t your governor. He’s tearing around the country trying to start up his presidential wannabe campaign and we’ve just about had it with him. This is from Baton Rouge’s The Advocate. He singled out some woman professor as the poster child for unnecessary research in his new book. He’s been out pimping for the book ala other Republican Governor Presidential Idiot Wannabes that want to be independently wealthy before they take the plunge to New Hampshire. The poor anthropology professor was doing a longitudinal story on Russian Mail Order Brides and their U.S. husbands. It turns out the research was funded by a grant and not tax payers too. That didn’t stop Jindal from tearing into the article in his book or fact-checking his words or reading the article for that matter.

Read the entire Op-Ed piece and be appalled that some one with so many educational opportunities in his life wants to deny so many others that opportunity and force them into oil rig serfdom. Baton Rouge is not exactly a bastion of liberalism so this piece may be a good sign that he’s wearing out his welcome here. The article even sneakily mentions the one university that should be shut down and a trio of universities that should be merged because they are all in the middle of nowhere and have fewer students than most high schools. Jindal would never man up and do that. Instead he’s just draining ever useful and viable university by 1/3 of their budget a year. He’s sucking the life out of LSU, the med centers, and the law school. LSU has consistently rated among the top public universities in the country. Jindal obviously prefers we all go to community colleges instead.

Stop this man before he can do more damage any where else!!

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s machine of aides, bloggers, talk radio hosts and boutique publishers has turned its focus on college professors and what they do.

They attacked sabbatical study last week as a waste of money that takes teachers out of the classroom. The governor criticized scholarly study as unworthy of taxpayer dollars because such research fails to “create better lives and more job opportunities.”

At the base of this hubbub is Jindal’s apparent desire that higher education’s top officials just shut up and accept deep cuts he has planned for public college and university budgets
It all has the absurdity of season ticket holders dictating that the LSU Tigers no longer hold huddles because the quarterback’s primary job is to throw touchdowns.

If you haven’t ventured into Jindal’s ‘scholarly work’ at the New Oxford Review, please do so!!! It’s called BEATING A DEMON ; Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare. It’s all about participating in an exorcism.

”The crucifix had a calming effect on Susan, and her sister was soon brave enough to bring a Bible to her face. At first, Susan responded to biblical passages with curses and profanities. Mixed in with her vile attacks were short and desperate pleas for help. In the same breath that she attacked Christ, the Bible’s authenticity, and everyone assembled in prayer, Susan would suddenly urge us to rescue her. It appeared as if we were observing a tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange evil force. But the momentum had shifted and we now sensed that victory was at hand.”

Maybe Jindal the Terrible should consider signing up for the new recruiting effort by the Catholic Church for exorcists and leave those of us that prefer science, rational thought, and education alone. This is what you get when you vote for people without researching them carefully.

So, just when you think politicians couldn’t get any more elitist and just plain whacked, this brings me to something BostonBoomer, Pilgrim and I have been discussing. The book is called ‘C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy’ by Jeff Sharlet. It’s the follow-up to a book called ‘The Family’. Both let you know how many of our country’s most important institutions–like Congress and the military–have been invaded by crazy people. Bart Stupak, John Ensign, Tom Coburn, and Jim Inhofe are among the resident nutjobs of this frat boyz for jeezus club. This group of good ol’ boys supports some of the most villainous, heinous murders in the world you could imagine because they believe being rich is a sign that you are chosen by god. They helped Papa Doc. They helped Suharto. Here’s a bit from the author about David Coe, one of the C Street Family.

What was the concept? “Men who are picked by God!” Not the many, but the few. Under Coe’s guidance, Family politicians embraced the idea that God prefers the services of a dedicated elite to the devotion of the masses. “I have had a great and thrilling experience reading the condensed version of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, ” one of Coe’s lieutenants wrote him after Coe had given him a reading list for “the Work,” as their mission was often called. “Doug, what a lesson in vision and perspective! Nazism started with seven guys around a table in the back of an old German Beer Hall. The world has been shaped so drastically by a few men who really want it such and so. How we need this same kind of stuff as a Hitler or a Lenin.” That is, for Jesus, of course

You don’t get to call it a Godwin when a group does it to itself on its own, do you?

Okay, so those poor little put out TSA staff are now speaking out about all the trauma that they have to endure. People actually yell at them!!! Poor babies!!! This is from the Daily Mail.

‘It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh,’ one told the BoardingArea blog.

‘Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!’

Another said he had a huge problem dealing with a ‘large number of passengers… daily that have a problem understanding what personal hygiene is.’

Well, that’s a thought. If you’re going to travel, don’t shower for days and that will certainly raise a stink for them! What, they thought they were only going to get to feel up super models? Was that in the recruiting ads some where? Maybe they should consider quitting or complaining to their boss, John Pistole.

Just a quick heads up. Wikileaks tweeted that Wikileaks said, “Next release is 7x the size of the Iraq War Logs. Intense pressure over it for months,” and asked supporters to continue donating to the cause. We need to start up an Ellsberg Prize for Truth.

The always outspoken Congressman Barny Frank defended Ben Bernanke and the QE2. Additionally he called Republican detractors to be more in line with China than U.S. interests.

Frank said that in the absence of additional fiscal measures, the Fed’s asset purchases are an appropriate response.

“I wish we had some more fiscal stimulus,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “In the absence of that, given unemployment, given the complete absence of inflation, he is doing a very reasonable thing.”

The Fed has been making speeches before congress and exercising monetary policy in concern of both inflation and unemployment since the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Law was passed in 1978. I wasn’t really aware that there was anything questionable about that goal until Bostonboomer called my attention to this over at the NYT.
It seems that some Republicans want to limit the Fed’s policy scope to inflation fighting only. This further convinces me that they have no interest in putting Americans back to work. I’ve pretty much decided that most of the hoopla over QE2 is from financial interests who really don’t want to lend money at reasonable rates any more. This also brings me in mind of that thought.

The Fed’s being using a modified Taylor rule for some time and has very much taken a stand in keeping with Anna Schwartz and Milton Friedman’s seminal work on the Great Depression. That’s the CONSERVATIVE economist Milton Friedman, remember him? He basically said that the FED botched monetary policy and let deflation ruin the economy. What most conservatives don’t get these days–probably because they never actually both to read anything factual–is that Friedman’s analysis owes a lot to Keynes.

Read this and see if you see any similarities.

FDR was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, and two days later he declared a “bank holiday,” allowing banks legally to refuse withdrawals by depositors; it lasted ten days. With his famous phrase, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he intended to dissuade depositors from running on their banks, but by then it was far too late. In 1929 there were a total of 25,000 banks in the United States. As the bank holiday ended, only 12,000 banks were operating (though another 3,000 were to reopen eventually). The effect on the money supply was equally dramatic. From 1929 to 1933 it fell by 27 percent—for every $3 in circulation in 1929 (whether in currency or deposits), only $2 was left in 1933. Such a drastic fall in the money supply inevitably led to a massive decrease in aggregate demand. People’s savings were wiped out so their natural response was to save more to compensate, leading to plummeting consumption spending. Naturally, total economic output also fell dramatically: GDP was 29 percent lower in 1933 than in 1929. And the unemployment rate hit its historic high of 25 percent in 1933.

Friedman and Schwartz argued that all this was due to the Fed’s failure to carry out its assigned role as the lender of last resort. Rather than providing liquidity through loans, the Fed just watched as banks dropped like flies, seemingly oblivious to the effect this would have on the money supply. The Fed could have offset the decrease created by bank failures by engaging in bond purchases, but it did not. As Milton and Rose Friedman wrote in Free to Choose:

The [Federal Reserve] System could have provided a far better solution by engaging in large-scale open market purchases of government bonds. That would have provided banks with additional cash to meet the demands of their depositors. That would have ended—or at least sharply reduced—the stream of bank failures and have prevented the public’s attempted conversion of deposits into currency from reducing the quantity of money. Unfortunately, the Fed’s actions were hesitant and small. In the main, it stood idly by and let the crisis take its course—a pattern of behavior that was to be repeated again and again during the next two years.

According to Friedman and Schwartz, this was a complete abdication of the Fed’s core responsibilities—responsibilities it had taken away from the commercial bank clearinghouses that had acted to mitigate panics before 1914—and was the primary cause of the Great Depression.

Okay, what exactly is the QE2 then? It’s large scale buying of treasury bonds. Why are they doing it? Because the Federal Government is not doing it’s job with the fiscal policy end. We had a stimulus that was way too weak and way too loaded with stuff that doesn’t stimulate very well and now we’ve got these idiots around talking about deficits and inflation. It’s like their trying to actively sabotage the economy!

Alright, well, I think I’m hitting MABLUE’s limit for being long winded so I’ll stop now. I need to go to the grocery store and see a man about some trade statistics.

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Sky Dancing

a place to discuss real issues

Hate is NOT a family value!!!

Thursday Reads: Thanksgiving Day